Living (with) abroad in Tuscany

Paul and Lucy Spadoni periodically live in Tuscany to explore Paul’s Italian roots, practice their Italian and enjoy “la dolce vita.”
All work is copyrighted and may not be reprinted without written permission from the author, who can be contacted at www.paulspadoni.com

Thursday, February 21, 2019

As
William Shakespeare demonstrated, tragic stories can be quite compelling
when well told. For me, this is even more valid when they are true stories
about the suffering of Italian citizens during World War 2. I’ve read a number
of these and have also personally interviewed former Italian soldiers and
civilians who suffered through these dark times, and few have told their story
better than Gian Franco Romagnoli in his posthumously published book Bicycle
Runner: A Memoir of Love, Loyalty, and the Italian Resistance.

The story
covers his life from age 14 to 25 in Southern Italy, during which time he
joined the Fascist youth organization Balilla. Living in a middle-class section
of Rome, his family sensed the ongoing “masquerade” since Italy’s invasion of
Ethiopia several years earlier. As he and his friends became more aware of the
realities of the war, they each had decisions to make. Some became fervent
Fascists, but Romagnoli and many in his circle began to use their bikes to
deliver books, pamphlets and messages for the resistance. They were too young
to be drafted or suspected of subterfuge, and they put their status as
innocents to good use.

GianFranco Romagnoli and his wife Gwen.

For a
time, Romagnoli maintained good relationships with childhood chums who chose
Fascism. He recalls a parting scene with a brother and sister who were heading
north to answer the call to serve Mussolini’s black shirts. “A sudden chill
fell between us . . . we were going to part icily, perfunctorily wishing each
other good luck and promising that if we ever met on the opposite sides of a
battlefield, we would not shoot at each other. Or at least not shoot to kill.”
The sister gave Romagnoli a scrap of paper from elementary school that they had
both signed with blood which said, The Best of Friends. “I remembered when we
had pricked our fingers, inspired by mafia indoctrination tales. I returned her
hug and said that perhaps we should now sign our names on a new piece of paper
titled The Best of Enemies.”

As he
grew older, Romagnoli had more serious decisions to make. If he remained in
Rome, he would be pressed into the military. He chose instead to join the
resistance and live in the woods in a rural area in Le Marche, where he had
spent many summers living with his aunt. His knowledge of the area proved useful
to the partisans and a British intelligence officer sent behind enemy lines to
help coordinate the scattered resistance fighters. He helped cook and operate
the radio, though he never did quite understand the coded messages he helped to
send. In one of the sadder moments, he discovered that a longtime friend (and
distant cousin) among his group of confidantes had betrayed the partisans and
passed intelligence on their movements to the Fascists and Nazis. However,
before the traitor could be confronted and possibly executed, the German
soldiers suddenly retreated.

Romagnoli
reminisces, too, about his coming of age: his first love, his first sexual
experiences, his fear of confession to the local Catholic priest and the warmth
of his extended family. These heartfelt sketches and vivid descriptions of a
deeply troubling time provide an invaluable depiction of a significant and
fascinating slice of Italian history.

Saturday, February 16, 2019

Il Parco di
Pinocchio—overpriced, crumbling rip-off, or an iconic, enjoyable playground for
kids and their families? The answer depends on one’s expectations and prior
experiences with modern amusement parks.

Juniper in a giant oak.

Though Lucy and I
have been coming regularly to Montecarlo—just 15 minutes away from Collodi—for
nine years, we had never been to Pinocchio Park until today. Since the park
receives mixed reviews on sites such as Tripadvisor, and we’ve not had
grandchildren visit us here before, we had no compelling reason to try it. Many
reviews say the park is old, run-down, understaffed and boring. But with four
children here for almost two weeks, we decided to give the park the ultimate
test. What would our American grandkids say after a three-hour visit?

Josie was able to mount the horizontal branches of the Quercione.

We were careful to
give them some advance information. Don’t compare it to Disneyland, 6 Flags or
other expensive amusement parks with fantastic rides. Think of it as a big
playground and a tribute to the original story of Pinocchio. We also read them
about half of Carlo Collodi’s book—not the Disney version (with more to be read
in coming evenings)—knowing that this would be important for true appreciation
of the park. On the way to the park, we first stopped by the Quercione.
This is a giant oak near Collodi that the author had undoubtedly seen in his
childhood and whom some believe he had in mind when writing the chapter about
the assassins who hung Pinocchio from the branch of a tree.

Josie, Clara and Ferhan in the swinging aligator.

Clara finds the assassins: the fox and cat.

After visiting the
park itself, Ferhan, 12, and Josie, 14, rated it four stars out of 5. Clara, 6,
gave it a 10. “It was great,” she said. “I tried some new things.” Juniper, 2,
said that she had fun playing but gave no numerical rating. Their mom, Sandy,
said, “I’d give it a 2 if you compare it to Disneyworld without lines. But if
you consider that the kids had a great time and it was an Italian cultural
experience, I’d rate it much higher. What you compare it to makes all the
difference.” One should also consider that the entrance fees, at least during
the low season (13 euros for adults, 7 euros for a child), come nowhere near
the typical $100-plus for a Disney park.

Junie meets the blue fairy.

It has a few small
rides, but since we went in February, they weren’t open. It had some old-fashioned
interactive games: a giant chess board and a game where you spin a dial and
move players ahead on a trail—with the game pieces being the children
themselves. There was a swinging alligator and small zip line, and a maze which
the older children and I raced through, with Ferhan winning each time. He named
this as one of his favorite parts of the park, while Clara said it was her
least favorite. “My brother knocked me over,” she said. “That was cheating!”

Beautiful art taken from descriptions
in the book.

Josie especially liked the Pinocchio trail, where one could see many of the
characters and settings from the book, including a giant spouting dogfish (or
whale) that the kids could enter and climb to the top on a spiral staircase.
There had been a puppet show and some other activities earlier in the day, but
we came too late to participate in them.

Money that does grow on trees, which Pinocchio had hoped for.

Clara takes off on the zip line . . .

The last activity, a
10-station ropes course, including a zip line that crossed the small but
rushing Collodi stream, was perhaps the best, even though only Clara
participated in it. The course was ideal for a bold 6-year-old like Clara to
prove her agility and courage, but perhaps too simple for her older brother and
sister. We all watched Clara sail through every station with confidence and
aplomb. A few kids needed help or turned back, but most completed the course.
We were surprised that no adult supervision was provided along the way unless a
child called for help or hesitated too long in one place, but we appreciated
the informality of the Italian way of doing things.

. . . and crosses the rushing Collodi.

It’s true the park is
old and lacking in modern technology, but we appreciated it as a kid-friendly
playground that requires participants to stroll, play, imagine and interact
with each other rather than be entertained by computer screens, flashing
lights, special effects and high velocity rides. With a modicum of preparation,
realistic expectations and an old-fashioned spirit of adventure, Il Parco
Pinocchio can be a great choice for family fun.

Monday, February 11, 2019

I don’t
usually post mostly photographic blog entries, but after we furnished the attic
with beds in anticipation of a visit with Dan, Sandy, their four kids and Mili,
Lucy asked me to snap some photos. I though they were worth sharing here, if
for no other reason than posterity. Our attic has come such a long way from
when we first moved in three years ago.

One of
the first things Lucy said in 2015 after she mounted the shaky fold-down ladder
and crawled in under the low overhanging beam is that we could clean this up so
our grandchildren—nipoti in Italian—could
sleep up here. If you had seen the attic then, you would know her statement
showed some vision, and we can’t be more pleased to see that the dream has
become reality.

The roof
is still a bit low for the adults, but the attic is cozy, clean, bright, dry
and warm. One of the rooms has flooring with roads and a small town on which
the kids can drive their toy cars. Every bed has a reading lamp. There’s a
small padded chair just the right size for children from age 2 to 8, and other
larger chairs and tables. Skylights can be opened to let in breezes, which will
be important to overcome the summer heat.

For some perspective, here's our once leaky attic in 2017.

Now the
family has arrived, and Mili and four nipotini are soundly
sleeping as I write. Before they went to sleep, Lucy and I read them two
chapters from The Adventures of Pinocchio—the real book, not the Disney
version. Pinocchio is an important figure here in the Valdinievole, since
author Carlo Collodi grew up only a few miles away, and if you open the
skylights on the east side of the attic, you can see the town of Collodi on a
nearby hillside. I’m sure that if the late Carlo Collodi could look back from
there and see inside our attic, he’d be pleased to see that his tale, written in
1883, is still being enjoyed by today’s children.

Friday, February 8, 2019

A funny
thing happened to me on the way to the police station yesterday. Funny for
those who appreciate a good dose of irony, anyway. But first, bear with me for
some background.

Lucy points to a ZTL sign in Montecatini Alto. It is
up high like the one in Altopascio that I didn't see.

About two years ago, I
received an automated traffic ticket in Italy for accidentally entering a
limited traffic zone with a rental car in Altopascio. The
sign was up high, and I didn’t see it, but the camera next to the sign saw me,
or my auto license plate, anyway. As typically occurs here, first a charge
showed up on my credit card from the auto rental company. This is an
administrative fee for the rental company to look up my address and give it to
the police. A month or so later, I received a letter telling me of the
violation and giving me details of how to pay the fine. I should also mention
that in 2011 I received a traffic camera ticket for speeding in Pisa and
another in Altopascio last year for being stuck in an intersection when the light
turned red. These incidents prompted me to research and write about traffic
camera tickets in Italy, and my blog entries on these topics are approaching 20,000 page views.

In my
research about speeding violators in Italy caught by what Europeans call autovelox cameras,
I found that Italy has far and away the most autovelox machines in Europe.
According to Coyote, which describes itself as Europe’s leading real-time
traffic information service, Italy has more than 7,043 fixed and mobile speed
detectors on motorways, followed by France with 3,324 and Spain with 1,800. But
it’s actually not the speed detectors that most foreigners complain about but
rather the huge number of fines which are issued to drivers who stumble
unwittingly into ZTL areas. ZTL stands for zona traffico limitato, or limited
traffic zone, a concept with which I have a love-hate relationship. It’s wonderful that
Italy has restricted traffic in many of its historical centers, reducing noise
and air pollution and making life so much more pleasant for walkers and people
on bikes. But I’m also a nervous wreck when driving in any city in Italy
because of all the stories I’ve heard—and my own experiences—of the risks of
wandering into a ZTL.

So back
to my ironic experience. I pitched the idea about me writing an article for an
American magazine, warning travelers about driving in Italian cities and explaining the
meaning of those ZTL signs. I found an editor who is enthusiastic about the
concept, and with the help of my cousin Claudio Del Terra, a police officer in
Altopascio, I set up an interview with Comandante Domenico Gatto of the much
larger nearby city of Montecatini Terme. I put the address of the police station
into my GPS, and I took with me Simone Torreggiani, a bilingual friend, to help
smooth communications during the interview.

I almost got a fine in Montecatini, but I was saved
by the small print. Can you read those hours?

We drove
to Montecatini and exited a roundabout onto the curved street of via Sansero.
Simultaneously we saw the police station and—you guessed it—up high, a ZTL sign
with a camera behind it. I hit the brakes and turned around in the middle of
the street—probably another violation, if anybody saw it. We parked the
car and walked over to the sign and camera, We noted the angle of the
camera and realized that I had undoubtedly not stopped in time. So here I was,
heading into an interview warning people about how to avoid ZTL violations, and
I had just blundered into one myself.

Ah, but
then we looked up again and read the fine print! The ZTL was only in force from
June 1 to October 2, and then only during the hours of midnight to 6 a.m. (perhaps to help people sleep). I was
off the hook! We still laughed at the irony, not only about the close call but
also how it was impossible to come around the corner, read the sign and stop in
time. Even more impossible would it have been for us to read the small print
about the time and date while seated in the car.

Here's a ZTL in Montecatini that can't be missed!

We
continued to the interview, and I can say that Commandante Gatto was extremely
helpful, informative, friendly and gracious. He explained that one can look up
maps that show all the ZTLs in Italy, along with the hours of enforcement. When
it’s necessary to drive inside a city to reach one’s hotel, there’s a procedure
for the hotel to provide the tourist’s license number to the police so no
infraction is incurred. He recommended that one use an up-to-date GPS device,
which can find routes that don’t lead you into a ZTL, and he provided many more
tips about driving in Italy which I can use in the article. Equally as
important, he helped me set up a photo shoot with two of his officers, because
good visuals will be needed to draw attention to the story.

Comandante Domenico Gatto and me.

The
article will be printed later this year, and I’ll revise this post to include
more information about how to read it at that time. Hopefully, I’ll not have
any more unfortunate personal examples to include as research in the meantime.

Monday, February 4, 2019

Each of
the last four times we left our house in Montecarlo, we made arrangements with
our downstairs neighbor, Juri, for improvements to be made. The first time, to
repair the roof and add three skylights; next, to add a staircase to the attic;
the third time, to install walls and flooring in the attic and paint and treat
the roof beams for insects. Each time, we returned to Montecarlo to see
dramatic and pleasing changes.

When we
left the last time, in November, we made more arrangements for improvements,
but the changes this time are much subtler, even if no less costly. We asked
Juri, who is an electrician by trade, to completely rewire the house, adding
more circuits, more outlets and a circuit breaker panel with separate circuits
for lighting, kitchen appliances, the washer, the dryer, the water heater and the furnace. We had
been operating with wiring that had been installed in the 1960s, and we could
only operate one appliance at a time without tripping the main circuit breaker
and plunging the whole house into darkness. To turn it back on, I had to go down two flights of stairs. In addition, the house suffered
from a severe lack of outlets, forcing us to run extension cords in numerous
places.

Our new electrical panel, now with multiple circuits, installed in our attic.

If the
lack of circuits and outlets weren’t enough reason to order the work, Juri had
informed us that our old outlets had not been grounded. We had wondered about
this, as we occasionally received mild electrical shocks when loading the
dishwasher or using the range.

We
arrived back in Montecarlo last week to find the wiring all complete, with an
abundance of electrical receptacles. Last fall we had purchased a used clothes
dryer, and now we actually have adequate power to use it. This should come in
quite handy, especially next week, when Dan and Sandy and their kids come to
visit, along with their au pair Milagros. We’ll have nine people in the house
in the middle of a rainy winter, when it can take several days for clothes to
dry by hanging on racks or on the radiators. So while the house
doesn’t look much different than it did when we left, we realize that it would
have looked quite a mess with wet clothes constantly hanging in every room.

There is
still one hurdle to overcome, as Lucy and I have both been shocked when
touching the dishwasher and range, so something is wrong with the grounding
system. We don’t expect this to be a major issue, because we are confident that
Juri can find the problem and fix it as soon as he has the time. I should also
mention that during our last absence, the plumber finally got around to
correcting the drain on our kitchen sink so that the waste water goes to the
city sewer instead of the neighbor’s garden.

We’re
hopeful that this will be the last major expense for some time, because frankly
we’ve spent way more money fixing the house in the last three years than we
ever expected. It turns out we were lucky our business didn’t sell, because we
needed the earnings from the past two summers to pay for all our home repairs.
Hopefully, this will be our last summer working full time so in the future we
can have the option to come to Montecarlo in May, June and September (but still not
during the insufferably hot days of July and August), when most of the sagre and feste are
held, not just in Montecarlo but also in the surrounding Tuscan towns.

Wednesday, January 23, 2019

Italy can be a
cruel, dismal, abusive and unforgiving place for immigrants from developing
countries. This was the experience of Cristina G., who dreamed of improving her
conditions by escaping from the poverty of her family’s farm in Romania to
Italy, where she hoped to find a better life. Instead she mostly found bigotry,
misogyny, cruelty and abusive conditions that bordered on slavery. She writes
about her experiences in Ten Years in Italy, Three Weeks a Human.

I’m
Italian-American and live in Italy at least three months every year, and I love
Italy. However, I can’t help but notice the harsh conditions that many immigrants
there endure. Most of them can’t publish books about their stories, but
Cristina, who lived in Italy from 2000 to 2010, gives voice to an experience
that one can only hope is rare —but perhaps is too common.

Her first
job as a live-in babysitter started badly. “Useless Romanian!” her employer, a
countess with two children, shouted. “Stay out of my sight! You make me feel
sick. You shouldn’t have been allowed to come here.”

Cristina,
then 24, slept in a smelly basement bedroom, its walls covered with damp green
mold. The countess made Cristina walk behind her at least a meter because
“you’re not on my level.” Cristina tried to learn Italian as quickly as
possible and wrote words on her hand to help her remember. The countess saw
this and grabbed the pen, shouting, “Illiterate creature! You didn’t come here
to learn, you came here to serve and follow the rules! You’re here because you
were starving in your petty country, not to write words on your filthy hand.”

When a
young man rescued her from that family, it seemed her life had taken a turn for
the better. Within a month they were married, but it soon turned out that he
and his mother treated her as a servant as well. Within eight months, she was
back on her own again. She worked as a waitress, a woodworker and a secretary,
among other things, for the next nine years, and mistreatment became the norm.
Many of her problems stemmed from her attractive appearance. Men tended to
treat her as a sex object. Women resented her because of the attention shown to
her by her male bosses.

She
refused the advances of her employers, despite receiving advice like this while
working in a restaurant: “You silly girl, every man in in this room has their
eyes on you. Rich men would buy you a house where you would wait for them and
do nothing all day. They would pay for your clothes, food, holidays. You’ll
never get out of this. You’re wasting your tremendous beauty and youth.”

Cristina reading two books at once.

She
rejected this idea, but her status as a Romanian and a woman made it difficult
for Cristina to rent an apartment and buy a car. She also battled ill health
and depression, sometimes contemplating suicide, but she persisted. This is not
an inspiring rags-to-riches success story, because in the end, riches never
came. After 10 years, nearly as poor as she was when she started, Cristina
wrote that “defeated in everything, without a shred of dignity left intact, I
went home.” She had held only one job during her stay in Italy, a temporary
contract that lasted for three months, where she felt accepted and appreciated
by both co-workers and supervisors. In recent years, Cristina has found a measure
of success as an author while living in England.

Despite
all the difficulties, she does not regret going to Italy and says she would
absolutely do it again. “It goes without saying that I would have preferred to
be spared at least half of the (sufferings), but I survived. I look back and
know that everything happens for a reason. I owe Italy everything I am today. I
must emphasize that (my story) could have been any other country. My goal isn’t
to denigrate but to raise awareness of unwitting prejudices in many of us.”

The story
suffers from some grammatical and organizational errors, but Cristina’s voice
is sincere and compelling. It’s likely that some of the unsympathetic
characters she encountered would want to dispute some of her perceptions, but
this is Cristina’s recollection. It’s not flattering to either her or Italy,
but the story deserves to be told and is worth reading.

Saturday, January 12, 2019

If your
ancestors came from Italy, you should strongly consider taking a family
heritage trip to explore your roots. In recent years, various touring
organizations have sprung up to offer customized tours of the home villages of
one’s ancestors, combined with genealogical research to expand one’s family
tree. While I’ve managed to do this on my own by learning Italian, living in
Italy part time and devoting many weeks to research, not everyone has the time
and resources to do that. The next best thing is to pay someone in Italy to
help you plan a customized trip, where you can visit your ancestral villages
and possibly even meet living relatives.

Cassandra
Santoro, the founder of Travel Italian Style, offers family heritage trips
along with other travel planning services. Send her what you know about your
Italian ancestors and she’ll partner with Italian genealogists and researchers
to explore your family tree and then take you on a tour of your ancestors’ home
city or village.

“From genealogy research to meeting relatives in your family’s village in Italy, anything is possible with our team of experts,” Cassandra said. “There’s nothing better than a bilingual tour guide to walk you through the streets and discover the areas where your family lived and worked. We can even book you a cooking experience, so you can learn recipes from the local area that your family comes from.”

Elena, Paul and Andrea

If your
ancestors come from the area of my roots, between Lucca and Montecatini, you can make no better choice than to put yourselves in the
able hands of tour guide and interpreter Elena Benvenuti and researcher Andrea
Mandroni. Elena knows the area’s history well—she’s Tripadvisor’s number one
rated attraction in Montecarlo—and Andrea is the premier local genealogist.
Andrea can search out your family tree, and Elena, who speaks English well, can
show you the towns and churches where your ancestors came from. Born and raised
in Lucca, Elena even offers cooking classes that feature her family’s local recipes.

Giuseppe Daniele Pantera, taken between1860 and 1880.

I
recently recommended Elena and Andrea to Paul Jurmo, a friend I met through the
Internet. Following my advice, he and his wife and son wrote to Elena and
Andrea and planned a trip to Montecatini. They met up in nearby Montecarlo to
hear Andrea’s genealogy discoveriesand to learn about the nearby town of
San Gennaro, where Paul’s great grandfather Giuseppe Daniele Pantera and
earlier ancestors had originated.

“I was very grateful for the care Andrea took in making my family tree and providing documentation, and in how he clearly presented the information and patiently responded to my questions when we met,” Paul said. “Elena is a very knowledgeable, professional and personable tour guide, and she and Andrea were a great team, both informative and friendly. I highly recommend them.”

Paul
discovered the names and dates and places of birth of about 35 ancestors and
cousins that were previously unknown to him. He learned some history of San
Gennaro, and, after leaving Andrea and Elena, he and his wife and son visited
the town and its church to get a feel for the place where Giuseppe Pantera had
been born and raised. Paul wrote a very complete report for his American
relatives, and he also shared a copy with me.

These are
some excerpts from his pilgrimage to San Gennaro, which took place on Christmas
morning of 2018:

We drove
along back roads for about 30 minutes from Montecatini Terme, passing through
small nearby towns (including Collodi, where the author of the Pinocchio story spent time as a boy). After getting lost a few times on the winding roads,
we made the turn onto the rural lane to San Gennaro. We drove slowly up a hill
through pretty olive groves. As we rose higher on the hill, we stopped for
beautiful vistas and looked out over the rolling hillsides and to distant
mountains on the horizon. One could imagine life on that same road in those
same orchards two hundred or more years ago.

The Pieve di San Gennaro, the church that the Pantera families attended in Italy.

Old stone
houses began appearing along the roadside. We drove the final stretch of the
road and into a parking lot at the edge of the village main street, which
serves as the backbone of the community and is lined with old three- and
four-story residences painted in yellow and other eye-pleasing Italian-style
colors. The village was quiet, with no cars on the narrow street and only a
very few people walking along. It appeared that most people weren’t home, maybe
visiting elsewhere on Christmas Day or at the village church. We walked to one
end of the street and then back up the street in the direction of the church,
whose tower could be seen poking its head up over the houses at the other end
of the village. I wondered whether our ancestors had lived in one or more of
these houses or perhaps in another house on the outskirts of the village.

As we
made our way up the hill, we made a final turn that took us to a small
cobblestone plaza in front of the church. Christmas Mass was underway. We
didn’t want to intrude, so we waited outside, listening to the congregants
singing and the priest praying. Then the church bells began ringing and the
parishioners emerged from the front door. Not wanting to be intrusive, we
didn’t get too close, though I secretly was hoping to catch a glimpse of
someone who looked like one of the Pantera aunts or uncles I’d grown up with.
Though I didn’t quite see anyone who fit that description, I did see a lot of
nice-looking, friendly, well-dressed people greeting each other and looking
like they were happy to be together on such a special day and beautiful
morning.

After
most of the congregants had walked or driven away, we went into the church,
which we had read was built around the 13th century on the site of an even
older church. The church was not one of the big cathedral-type churches that
tourists tend to visit in places like Italy. We took photos of the interior and
exterior from different angles, which showed the altar, the priest, his lay
assistant, the pulpit, some of the paintings and other decorations, one of the
holy water fountains, and the baptismal fountain. I thought that this was a
place where many members of our family tree had spent a fair amount of time,
being baptized, taking sacraments, attending masses, getting married and
attending weddings, and attending funerals.

Paul met
the priest, but they were only able to communicate on a very basic level
because of language differences. However, Paul said he was greeted warmly and felt very
welcome. His visit was too short to allow time to see the cemetery or seek out
any possible living relatives in town, but that could be on the agenda for a
future visit.

Paul’s
visit shows that one doesn’t necessarily have to pay a high price and opt for
complete travel arrangements. He made his reservations himself, and by paying
Elena and Andrea directly, he saved a bundle over the fees needed for complete
trip planning services. However, it takes time and even a bit of good
fortune to find a top-notch guide who also partners with the area’s best
researcher, so it could be safer to hire a complete travel service such as
Travel Italian Style.

Having
come to Italy myself to research my roots and see the places where my
grandparents grew up, I can relate to the satisfaction that Paul felt. I’ve
been fortunate enough to live in Montecarlo long enough to meet dozens of
living relatives and other members of the local community—a source of great
pleasure and fulfillment. Seeing the homes, streets, places of work and
churches where my ancestors were born, baptized, married and gathered for
worship evokes feelings that are difficult to describe and
impossible to duplicate.

Thursday, January 10, 2019

The muted
glow from the cloud-covered moon cast only the faintest light in the deep, tangled
Idaho forest. The year was 1908, and John Ernest Wagoner was wet, alone and lost. Only
17, he had recently graduated from high school in Carroll County, Indiana. He had
never been away from home, but when brother George, 11 years John’s elder, told
him about a job prospect in a logging camp out west, John succumbed to the lure
of opportunity and adventure.

John E. Wagoner, date unknown

Now,
standing in the dense woods, John regretted his decision. He tried to fight
back the lump in his throat and the hot tears that coursed down his cheeks and
mixed with the rain. Never had he been so scared or lonely. George had written
directions about which trains to take and where to get off, but they ended with
the words, “Go up the trail about three miles and you’ll come to the camp. Ask
for me there.” Indiana had stations for its trains, and John had not considered
that the final stop might be just a platform in the woods, nor that he would
arrive well after sundown.

He should
have asked more questions of the other passengers. They would have known which
direction he should take to reach the camp. Perhaps some of them were even
bound there themselves. But now it was too late. The half dozen or so riders
who exited with him at the final stop had marched off in different directions,
disappearing in the darkness, as did the train.

Only one
thing seemed certain: He had to take a chance and pick the most likely
direction, because he didn’t want to spend the night exposed to the dangers of
the dark, moist forest. He noted that just beyond the platform, train rails
branched off from the main line, and guessing that this spur track might lead
to a logging operation, he set off, stumbling occasionally over the rough ties.
The gap between the trees seemed to narrow menacingly, as if the trees were
moving closer, ready to swallow him as he plodded forward. The blanket roll on
his shoulders grew heavier, saturated by the persistent rain.

John
plunged onwards, buoyed by the thought that no one would build a train track to
nowhere, but it seemed to him that he had covered far more than three miles.
Could this be an abandoned line?

John as a young man.

And then
he saw it, a faint light in the woods. As he plunged into the woods away from
the track, he realized with disappointment that it came not from a camp with
barracks but from a single tiny shack. Still, it was a house and a light, which
promised people, comfort, information—vast improvements over his prospects only
a few minutes before. He knocked on the door, and the light quickly vanished.
He heard scuffling noises from inside, and then silence. He knocked again and
called out, pleading for help while trying—with only partial success—to keep
his voice from shaking.

Finally,
a gruff voice answered, “Who are you and what do you want?” A man inside opened
the door a crack and lit a lantern. “Why, you’re just a boy.” Shivering, John
stammered out his plight, and the man invited him in to warm up.

“You’ve
not far to go,” the man explained, offering John a seat and a sip of reheated
coffee. “You’ve taken the right track, and the loggers are just up a little
farther. Let me get my boots on and I’ll take a lantern to light your way back
to the tracks.”

The man
from the shack accompanied John back to the tracks and even walked with him
until they could see welcoming beams of light emanating from the logging camp. John,
relieved beyond measure and with his composure and courage renewed, thanked the
kind stranger profusely.

“I’m
sorry I called you a boy,” the man said. “I can see now that you’re actually a
man.”

“It’s
quite all right,” John answered. “You may have been correct—both then and now.”

⧫ ⧫ ⧫

Teacher and principal

Author’s
note: This story is based on accounts from my mom and grandmother, with some descriptive details added from my imagination. I grew up in Rosedale, Washington, next door to my grandfather, John
Wagoner (1881-1962). He worked in the logging camp for only one winter before
he and George moved to Chewelah. They went to college in Spokane, took a state
examination and became teachers in 1910. John taught in Washington state for
the rest of his working life, often doing double duty as teacher and principal.
He had a profound influence on my life.

Tuesday, January 8, 2019

Six years ago, I wrote a blog about how I desired to fit in
with Italian society but often fell short (I
want to be Italian, but I come up lacking in some vital areas). It was lighthearted
in tone, because fitting in is truly not that important or necessary for me. I’m
not a teenager who needs to belong, and I’m not isolated from old friends and
family, as is the case with some foreigners. I just made some observations that
it would be easier to blend with Italians if I had more love for coffee, wine, fashion,
art and a late-night lifestyle.

Hunter posted this photo of the Italian
way of people waiting in a "line."

Recently I shared this blog on the Facebook group Americans Living in Italy, and it struck
a chord with many people who were quick to pour out their tales of woe. It
seems I’m far from the only American who suffers from a touch of chronic
culture shock. I’ll use first names only for privacy reasons.

“This post is me exactly,” Sheila wrote. “I don’t like coffee
unless it’s a frappuccino or caffé crema.” For health reasons, Sheila also doesn’t
drink wine. “Italians are like, ‘Omg, you can’t drink wine?’ But then I tell
them I save lots of money and my health when I don’t drink alcohol. And my vice
is Italian sweets.”

Carole also is not fond of the tiny Italian servings of coffee
to start her day: “I do the Italian life when out and about, but I have to have
a mug of coffee in the morning that I can hug with both hands. I bought an
American coffee maker from Amazon.”

Most of those adding comments brought up other Italian habits
that they are loath to adopt.

An Italian breakfast.

Miranda: “I eat dinner early. I eat a big breakfast. I drink caffé
lungo. In the summer when it’s hot, I go to bed with wet hair and the fan
directly on me! I always go shopping on Sundays.”

Jack: “Ice! I want ice in my soft drinks.”

Reeta: “I want to enjoy my coffee for more than three seconds.”

Serena: “I miss salad dressing and Mexican food.”

Dawn: “I love breakfast. A REAL breakfast.”

Thea: “Yes. A PROPER HEALTHY BREAKFAST without so much sugar
and flour in it, also known as cake.”

Sandy: “My personal temperature gage is not very Italian. I
hate feeling hot so frequently. I’m dressed too lightly for my Italian friends,
and they are scandalized by my short sleeves or lack of scarf.”

Kayt: “I just can’t make myself eat fish with the heads still
attached. I don’t care how small they are. Gross! They’ll have to lie to me and
tell me it’s something else, just like when they tricked me into eating ravioli
with asino. It was actually not too
bad, haha!” Note: asino is donkey.

A few people really took my blog as an inspirational starting
point and added long lists of complaints about Italian society. Dawn from Rome
made several observations:

·The
slowness of this place or lack of urgency unless you are paid off really gets
under my skin. I’m all about planning, preparation, timeliness, doing what I say
I’ll do. Italians don’t grasp this concept.

·Food
places close after lunch and don’t reopen until 7.30 p.m. for dinner. Come on,
elderly people in the U.S. have dinner between 4 and 5. Also, places either don’t
serve breakfast or stop by 10 or noon.

·I don’t
dress like Italians temperature wise. I get overheated if it’s not that cold. I
just started wearing a scarf two weeks ago (late December).

·The
driving! I follow laws. To Italians, it’s just a suggestion.

·I hug. I
can’t do the kiss kiss thing. It’s just unnatural for me. Not to mention I always
lean to my left first and they always go to kiss my left cheek first so we pretty
much almost kiss on the lips. It’s awkward.

Following Dawn’s “kiss kiss” comment, Kayla added an amusing
story: “My husband accidentally kissed our babysitter!!! I have learned to go
right, but he hasn’t. After I said goodbye to her, he went to say goodbye and
they brushed lips! He was mortified, and she said, ‘I have a boyfriend’ and
left. He’s still embarrassed, but it’s my favorite story.”

·Who the
hell wants ONLY olive oil as an option for salads? It’s great, but I miss Ruby
Tuesday’s salad bar. So many toppings!

Michael posted this photo with the tongue-
in-cheek comment that Italy has too many
traffic jams.

One might wonder why I and other Americans live in Italy if we
have all these complaints, but several of the commenters pointed out that the
benefits still outweigh the inconveniences. A couple of days later in the same
Facebook group, someone asked the question: “Out of all of you who have bought
property here in Italy, are you happy?” The comments are running almost 100
percent yes, so just because we face cultural differences and like to express
them doesn’t mean we’re dissatisfied. It just means we’ve adapted and embraced
that very Italian custom of complaining about our beloved country.

An Amazon.com "Italy memoir" BEST SELLER

‟An American family spends a year in Italy–a dream, a disaster, laughter and tears, an unforgettable memory. Warning: this book may cause you to book a flight to Italy. Enjoy!” –Maria Coletta McLean, author of My Father Came from Italy

Follow us by Email

Search This Blog

About Me

First off, before you hassle me about our title, Lucy thought of it. Yes, I know some people may think broad is derogatory, but the etymology is uncertain and she doesn’t find it offensive, and it made me laugh. We have been married since 1974 and are empty-nesters now, which allows me to bring my submerged Italophilia into the open. We first came to live in Italy from February-April in 2011 and have returned during the same months every year. From 2011-2015, we lived in San Salvatore, at the foot of the hilltop city Montecarlo, where my paternal grandparents were born, raised and, in 1908, married. In late 2015, we bought a home in Montecarlo. We come for a variety of purposes: We want to re-establish contact with distant cousins in both Nonno’s and Nonna’s families, we want to learn the language and see what it is like to live as Italians in modern Italy, we like to travel and experience different cultures. Even if we aren’t successful at achieving these purposes, we love Italy and enjoy every moment here, so there is no chance we will be disappointed. I am grateful to God for giving me a wife who is beautiful, clever, adaptable and willing to jump into my dreams wholeheartedly.